Open your eyes, your
Lordship (retired)
Justice K T Thomas
must know the truth of the RSS
John Dayal responds to KT Thomas (Justice, Supreme Court,
retired)
JOHN DAYAL
As a Malayalee who
was also a judge of the Supreme Court of India, Justice Kallupurackal
Thomas Thomas occupies an enviable place in the Kerala Christian
social pantheon. No one in his right mind will dare say
he is turning senile. Far from it. That man of justice, and of peace,
remains as sharp as when he was on the highest Bench in the land. It
therefore remains a mystery why Justice Thomas, invited often by right
wing forums in his twin identity as jurist and Christian, always ends
up praising the Hindutva lunatic fringe and denouncing the conversions
of new people turning to Christ.
In an address in
Kochi on 1 august 2011, Justice Thomas praised the RSS for its
discipline and said the propaganda that the organisation was
anti-minority was "baseless". The Press Trust of India reported that
speaking at a function here, attended by RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat, he
also said the ''smear campaign'' against RSS that it was responsible
for the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi must end. “There is a smear
campaign that RSS was responsible for Gandhi’s assassination just
because the assassin was once an RSS worker," he said, adding that the
organisation had been ''completely exonerated'' by the court. This
smear campaign must end against RSS," he said.
Gratuitously, Justice
Thomas sought to expand his personal views to make them seem he spoke
for the entire Christian community, including you and me. “I am a
Christian. I was born as a Christian and practise that religion. I am
a church going Christian. But I have also learnt many things about RSS,"
he said. He said he became an admirer of the RSS in 1979 when he was
posted as district judge of Kozhikode, adding simple living and high
thinking was its hallmark. During the Emergency, RSS was the only
non-political organisation which fought against it. "We owe very much
to RSS for sacrificing many lives for regaining our fundamental rights
...". "The propaganda that RSS was anti minority was also baseless,"
he said, adding he is a great admirer of the organisation as
discipline is given importance.
This writer share
some qualifications with the venerable justice. Like him, “I too am a
Christian, a Catholic as a matter of fact. I was born as Christian
and practice that religion. I am a church going Christian. But I have
also leant many things about the RSS.”
One may in fact have
learnt many more things about the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, for
when he was rapidly going the ladder of jurisprudence, Reporting on
the RSS forty years ago, visiting their shakhas, recording what their
leaders said, and documenting their written statements and literature,
one saw the training of youngsters and college students, and the
excesses of fat pot bellied middle agenda traders in khaki shorts and
white shirts, an hour before they went back to their shops in Chandni
chowk and Chawri bazaar, the wholesale market of old Delhi.
It was perhaps too
early in the day,, because one did not see what crowds in Jhansi saw
decades later -- the frightening scene of RSS cadres practicing with
mock and real rifle and double barrelled guns down the main
thoroughfares of town, or of RSS chief ministers themselves firing
military hardware while posing for photographs. But one did see how
RSS cadres were trained in meetings early morning in
public parks as much as in closed door vyayamshalas, their “boudhiki”
intellectual brain washing, and their war games. “Exercises” no less
frightening –elaborate handwork with thick lathis, or staves, the sort
policemen carry at night. One also saw “children’s games” in which
boys formed a string holding hands, and then swopped down on a rival
group, trying to “abduct” or capture persons, presumably women. The
“boudhikis” were given to reading the editorials and main articles in
those poison-pen official mouthpieces of the Sangh, the Organiser in
English, not read at the Shakhas, and the Hindi language Panchjanya,
the mainstay of the morning discourses. They would then discuss what
damage the Muslims had done to India. It would all conclude with
another salute not to India, but to a mythical “Mother India”, more
goddess than a symbol of the land which they shared with practitioners
of all other religions.
And therefore it is
quite obvious that Justice Thomas, as is his right, looked only at the
pretty saffron flowers, and forgot to look at the blood which sullies
the earth on which the RSS flag is hoist.